Any medical types care to answer some allergy questions?

[FloweryBoots]

I'm just curious really, I like to understand things. Last week I took DS, 10 months, to the GP as I suspected he had hayfever and it was getting quite trublesome. GP thought it seemd like hayfever and referred him to a pediatric clinic at the hospital. The doctor there also thought it was hayfever until she went to check with an alergy doctor about what to pescribe, if anything, and then came back and said it coudln't be hayfever as he was too young. She said he would have to go through 2 seasons for hayfever as he would be sensitised in the first then react in the second.

He's now got an ear infection and was given antibiotics, but has reacted quite nastily against them and the GP has said he's allergic to penicillin (sp?).
He'd never had antibiotics before so how come he can be allergic to that first time, but not be allergic to pollen first time/season? Is it a different sort of allergy?

[sneezecakesmum]

did he react against the first ever dose or the second or third? you would really need to be sensitised to something so that antibodies are produced the first time and react the second (or third) time. Each response should be worst than the first. If he reacted immediately it is possible that he was sensitised in the womb or when breastfeeding. If none of these is the case an allergic response can occur if a substance if similar to the one provoking the reaction. If none of these is the case then I havent a clue!

btw. Why would a baby need a whole summer of pollen to react the following year? Surely if he is exposed to grass pollen in may and it recurs in july he would react as antibodies would have been made in may? having said that babies dont usually get hayfever so it seems correct, but I would never say never about anything.

[FloweryBoots]

Good point, thanks. Yes, he started the medicine on Thurday and didn't start with the rash until Saturday so I guess he got sensitised then started reacting.

I'm not really sure why he couldn't already be sesitised to the pollen yet, either from earlier this year, or from last August when he was first born. But we do have some antihistimines for him now for if it gets very bad. Poor little mite wa really strugling lat weekend when it wa supper hot.

[sneezecakesmum]

If the antihistimine works flowery then I would say definitely hayfever/allergy symptoms. Its logical to say that I think regardless of what the doc says!